The Longest Road to Nowhere
by Guilty Bird
Summary: When Voldemort kills Harry with the Avada Kedavra in the Forbidden Forest, Harry wakes up in his flat in London and learns that most of his life has been a dream. He is in fact a graduate of Stonewall High, and is living an unenviable life as an underdog at his uncle's drilling firm. Magic is a lie. Or...is it? Can Harry ever come back home?
1. Prologue

**The Longest Road to Nowhere**

**Summary:** When Voldemort kills Harry with the Avada Kedavra in the Forbidden Forest, Harry wakes up in his flat in London and learns that most of his life has been a dream. He is in fact a graduate of Stonewall High, and is living an unenviable life as an underdog at his uncle's drilling firm. Magic is a lie. Or…is it? Can Harry ever come back home?

**Pairings: **Harry x Ginny

**Genre: **Harry and Ginny's relationship plays a very prominent role, but it doesn't concentrate on romance (since they already love each other). I won't explain much or else it'll ruin the story. For all intents and purposes, this story will be mostly drama and perhaps a little tragedy.

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**A/N: **If things go according to plan, this will be eleven/twelve chapters long - and each chapter will certainly be longer than this prologue. I'm only putting this up to test the waters, and maybe as an incentive for me to actually write out this story. Please tell me what you think of the premise. **  
**

I really hope I can finish this story! I have another Harry Potter fanfic and a Code Geass fanfic that I doubt I'll ever get around to finishing, as well as an original fic on fictionpress that's been abandoned for ages.

The first part of the prologue is straight from Deathly Hallows. Feel free to skip over it, but a huge chunk of it is actually very relevant to this story's plot, so maybe you should refresh your memory.

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**Chapter 1: Prologue**

"I was, it seems...mistaken," said Voldemort.

"You weren't."

Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could muster: He did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw his parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as he stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Harry, and he stared as Harry moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.

Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Harry, her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort's head.

Harry could feel his wand against his chest, but he made no attempt to draw it. He knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if he managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit him first. And still, Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the boy standing before him, and a singularly mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.

"Harry Potter," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Boy Who Lived."

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his –

Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear –

He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

**{ the longest road to nowhere }**

He lay facedown, listening to the soft humming of his surroundings. He was perfectly alone, and yet at the same time, not alone. Nobody was watching, and yet they were all watching. Nobody else was there, and yet everyone was. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself, and yet a long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was listening, definitely listening, to something crooning all around him, holding him. Therefore he had a sense of hearing, and there was something causing vibrations in the air, creating what sounded like a song of the world.

Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that he had a face, and as such, a body. He wondered whether, as he could hear, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.

He lay in a world of darkness that was not dark, for he was surrounded by stars that stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. He had never seen anything quite so beautiful, and he remained still, as he realized that the sound that had soothed him came from the stars.

A thousand years, or perhaps a millisecond later, Harry sat up, and looked down at himself. He was naked, but not cold as one would expect in the middle of space.

He stood up (in the back of his mind, a small, reasonable voice questioned how he could stand in mid-space but he pushed it away), looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. Several wooden bookcases towered above him, groaning under the weight of their hundreds of thick tomes. Perhaps he was in the library? But no – there were wispy grey cobwebs spanning the corners – corners? – and he knew Madam Pince would have thrown a fit at the very sight.

Suddenly, a bone-chilling shiver went through his body. Harry let out a whimper, and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block the source that way. He felt like somebody had plunged their hand into his body and ripped out something. He didn't know what had been taken, but he felt irreparably incomplete and unbearably small.

As if mimicking his current state of mind, the sound of the stars had grown louder and more ominous, and Harry suddenly realized that he was lying down again. He was clothed now, and he could feel the thin fabric fluttering against his skin: a steady whirring sound forayed into the realm of his hearing. A mote of dust drifted over his nose, and he blew it away with dry lips.

Feeling small, he waited there in the darkness for the storm to blow over.

However, the sound was growing almost unbearably loud now, and Harry wished it would stop. He opened his mouth to try and say something, but nothing except for a gravelly croak came out. Frustrated, he tried to block his ears, but found that his arms were trapped to his side by something heavy that rested on top of him.

Alarmed, Harry automatically lashed out and rolled to his left. To his surprise, there was no resistance, and he found himself crashing down onto the ground. His movement had knocked something else down with him, and he heard it break into pieces – and at the same time, to his relief, the incessant sound had stopped.

Having had the breath knocked out of him, he lay there, dazed, as the stars spun around him.

Slowly, the empty ache that had swept his body diminished into a steady thrum; it was still there in the background, but Harry no longer felt like the wind could pick up his body and blow it away. Another few minutes later – time seemed to have become a more solid and consistent medium – he gathered the strength to stand up.

It was still dark except for the stars above him, but the stars were no longer the sentient beings that had spoken to him. They were two-dimensional and flat, and curiously shaped. Compared to the diamond-like brilliance of before, now they only gave off a dull, eerie green glow – in fact, there was a stronger light peeking out from the other side of what Harry now confirmed to be a bedroom.

He had been in a bed with a thick comforter on top, and the only other furniture in the room were four bookcases, crammed with books, that lined the walls. The room was cold, and shivering, Harry moved towards the light. Upon further examination, he realized that thick cotton curtains covered the entire expanse of the wall. The source of the light was behind the curtains.

Without further ado, Harry pulled back the curtains with a single sweep, reaching into the folds of his muggle pajamas for his wand as he did so.

As light poured into the dark room from the glass window, Harry stood stock still in shock even as the sudden brightness caused his eyes to water in pain.

His wand was gone.

And somehow he knew in that split instant, as if the light that illuminated the room had also brought enlightenment to his foggy mind, that the one boon life had thought to gift him with was gone. The one thing that had changed his life for the better when he was eleven and alone in the world, the one thing that had brought meaning to his life – it was all gone.

The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Master of Death…Harry Potter was no longer a wizard.

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**A/N: **What do you think? Not much about what the actual plot will be has been revealed, but is it interesting? Also, if anyone's interested, I'd like a Beta Reader to read over my plot and future chapters and tell me what they think.


	2. Dream

**The Longest Road to Nowhere**

**Summary:** When Voldemort kills Harry with the Avada Kedavra in the Forbidden Forest, Harry wakes up in his flat in London and learns that most of his life has been a dream. He is in fact a graduate of Stonewall High, and is living an unenviable life as an underdog at his uncle's drilling firm. Magic is a lie. Or…is it? Can Harry ever come back home?

**Pairings: **Harry x Ginny

**Genre: **Harry and Ginny's relationship plays a very prominent role, but it doesn't concentrate on romance (since they already love each other). I won't explain much or else it'll ruin the story. For all intents and purposes, this story will be mostly drama and perhaps a little tragedy.

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**A/N:** Thank you for the reviews submitted, I'm happy people like it so far.

One of my biggest pet peeves in fanfiction is that wonderful thing called a plot hole. I really try to avoid these, but with only myself as an editor, it's difficult to catch them sometimes. I really tried to make Harry's thinking process logical here, but if you find yourself thinking it's somewhat improbable, please make sure to tell me so. Anyways, I hope I at least got across Harry's turmoil here, because it's the whole point of this chapter.

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**Chapter 2: Dream**

With his hand still firmly holding on to the graying curtains, Harry silently stared out the window. All he saw were dull brick flats, rusting iron fire escapes, precariously placed wilting plants in cracked pots…there were no cobbled pathways and hooting owls and mewling cats. Not a single person passing by below was wearing cloaks or pointed hats or robes. There were none of the fascinating Wizarding shops that had called to him those many years ago; there was only a dumpy-looking antique shop.

"It's just that I'm in the Muggle world," said Harry aloud – or at least tried to, as instead, a hoarse croaking emerged from his mouth. Startled, he tore his hand off the curtains, and backed away from the window. He was in such a small room that within a few seconds, he had reached the other side. Feeling the decidedly solid wall behind him, Harry sunk down to the floor and desperately looked around at his surroundings again, hoping for a clue for where and why he was here. But the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was a broken alarm clock at the side of the bed, its pieces scattered across the carpeted floor.

Harry squeezed shut his eyes, as if he could make it all disappear – but when he opened them again, he was still in the dark bedroom in this strange flat, and another croaking moan found its way out. A trickle of despair seeped into him, as the possibility that he had unconsciously been juggling in his mind – that this was just a horrible nightmare, and he was in fact sleeping in his four poster bed at Hogwarts – was quashed.

Harry shut his eyes his again, and pushing aside the overwhelming feelings of uncertainty and fear, he tried to clear his mind and remember what had happened to him.

He had been in the Forbidden Forest. He had found his parents, Sirius, Lupin by using the Resurrection Stone, and they had been with him in his final moments…

Voldemort.

Harry's eyes flew open, his heart pounding in his chest. He remembered now. He had went to face Voldemort, and given up his life so that the horcrux inside him could be destroyed. He remembered the flickering fire, that pale, snake-like mouth forming the words, the flash of green light, the swooshing of incoming death…

He had died, he was sure of it. So how had he ended up in the Muggle world, without even a wand? Because it couldn't be that his magic was really _gone_. That _couldn't_ be it…

But Harry couldn't ignore the aching hollow feeling inside his chest. He clenched his fists, and pushed himself up from the ground. Stalking forward back to the window, he seized the curtains and pulled them all the way open, letting the light fill the room. He looked outside grimly, his jaw set.

He knew he was somewhere in the Muggle part of London, even though he'd never truly explored it before. The only times he'd been in the Muggle side at all (not counting the few times he'd been grudgingly brought along by the Dursleys) had always been while heading towards the Leaky Cauldron, Platform 9 ¾, the Ministry of Magic, St. Mungo's…in other words, somewhere in the Wizarding world.

So how had Harry come here? Where were Ron, Hermione, Ginny…? Where were his friends? Did they think he was dead? Or had they brought him here? Because it couldn't have been Death Eaters who'd brought him here – he had all of his limbs intact after all, and besides the uncomfortable sensation in his throat, he felt relatively healthy.

Harry turned around and eyed the small wardrobe next to the bed. He would worry about Voldemort and his supposed death later. He had places to find, and a question to answer.

**{ the longest road to nowhere }**

Seven hours later, Harry found himself back where he had started – in the dark bedroom, hugging his knees as he shivered against the cold wall.

Seven hours earlier, to his unease, he had found Muggle clothes in the wardrobe that fit him perfectly. He'd emerged from the bedroom to find the rest of the unfamiliar flat – a tiny kitchen and an even tinier bathroom. He'd left his flat, and after walking down an aged stairway, found himself in front of a seedy, crumbling building.

Without a wand to flag down the Knight Bus, Harry had had to take the Tube and then walk a short way to Charing Cross Road. And to his horror – but not to his surprise, he realized with a sinking feeling – all he'd found was a broken-down old shop where normally he'd seen the Leaky Cauldron. Ignoring the strange looks he was getting, he'd spent over two hours loitering outside the closed shop, hoping to see at least someone coming in or out. But there had been nothing.

With no chance of even looking for Diagon Alley, Harry had headed to Whitehall and stepped inside every phone booth he could, and then went in search of the condemned department store Purge and Dowse, Ltd. – to no avail. Everything was functioning as they should have in the _Muggle_ world, and try as he might, Harry couldn't find even a hint that the Wizarding world was there. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that the Wizarding world didn't even exist. But brushing this disturbing thought aside, Harry had finally headed to his last resort – King's Cross Station. And there, he'd found himself disoriented and seeing spinning stars as he crashed headfirst into the barrier.

After explaining to the irritated station guard that he _wasn't_ a troublemaker and that he _hadn't_ intentionally rammed himself into the wholly solid barrier between platforms 9 and 10, Harry had left. He'd known perfectly well that the barrier would not have been open anyways, but he had been getting desperate…and now, there was nowhere else for him to go except back to the flat he had woken up in.

Taking his overcoat off and throwing it on the ground, Harry stalked into the bedroom, blinking back frustrated tears. He was exhausted after romping around London all day, but he couldn't bring himself to going back into the suffocating bed. It smelled of sweat and death. Instead, he sunk down to the floor, and buried his face in his arms.

His head nodding against his knees, he was about to fall into a fitful sleep, when suddenly, a phone rang.

Harry jumped; he hadn't even realized there was a phone in the flat, being as unused as he was to other Muggle homes (with the exception of his aunt's, where he wasn't even allowed to touch it).

Looking around, Harry quickly realized that it was outside the bedroom. Quickly getting up and opening the door, he saw that the phone was on the wooden counter that separated the kitchen from the little corridor that connected to the bedroom. It looked cheap and was rather dusty from disuse; Harry didn't dare pick up the receiver, but waited for the call to end.

Finally, after ten seconds, the incessant ringing sound ceased, and was instead replaced by the sound of a voice recording. It was a quiet, young man's voice, and it took Harry a few seconds to realize, to his shock, that it was his own voice.

"_Hello, you have just reached the number of Harry James Potter. I am not here at the moment, so please leave a message at the beep."_

Harry gaped; throwing his arm up, he leaned against the wall as his knees felt too weak to support his weight.

"Still pretending to be sick with pneumonia, boy?" It was a blustering and hard voice that he knew well. "Well, I better see you at work tomorrow. You've gotten the entire weekend off and don't think I won't dock your pay if you don't get your rear end back in your seat by tomorrow."

With the beep that signified the end of the voicemail, Harry stumbled back into the bedroom, his head spinning with questions and horrifying possibilities. Why was Uncle Vernon calling him, and what did he mean by work? Did he work for his uncle? If his uncle knew to call here, did that mean he did in fact live here?

Before he realized what he was doing, he'd somehow pushed a bookcase over, and its contents had poured onto the floor around him with a giant crashing noise. He heard what sounded like the muffled yelling of someone on the floor below his, but he ignored it, and knelt on the ground. Most of the books looked like textbooks or accounting books, but there were a few worn-down fantasy paperbacks scattered throughout. With shaking hands, Harry picked up the nearest book, and reading the title – _Hypnosis: Escape Reality –_ he turned it over to read the summary.

_Have you grown tired and weary with your reality? Looking for a way out, but can't find any? Then you have come across the right book. With the attached 6-tape set, you can create a new reality for yourself, one in which you can make your own choices and lead your life the way __**you**__ wanted to. Escaping reality __**is**__ possible._

Harry put the book down. What was a book like that doing in the collection? But before he could ponder it further, a thick and glossy grey book that looked like it had never even been opened caught his eye. A numb sensation spread through his body as he registered the title embossed on the front – _Stonewall High 1998_ . His mind was screaming at him to stop, but he opened the book and began to flip through the pages:

_K…L…M…N…O…_

There it was.

The young man in the photo looked worn down and tired. He was smiling but it was strained, and he looked as if there were an immense and invisible weight on his shoulders. There was an almost imperceptible tightening around the knuckles of his hands, a permanent wrinkle on his forehead, a blank and dead look in his green eyes.

_Harry James Potter, class of 1998._

Harry could barely recognize the young man as himself. But here it was, a photo that defied all that he knew. And from what he could gather from the voice message, he now worked at his uncle Vernon's firm, Grunning's.

His hand, against his bidding, crept up to his forehead. It froze.

In another surge of panic, Harry threw himself into the bathroom for the first time. Groping inside for the light switch – panting in his desperation – he finally found a string coming from a light bulb at the ceiling, and pulled it. A cheap, weak light filled the tiny stall, and registering in the split second that there was a single framed photo by the toilet – the first photograph he'd seen in the whole flat – Harry pounced on the tiny cracked mirror above the sink. A ragged, rattling breath escaped his dry lips as he gazed into it with horrified eyes.

His forehead was as smooth as it had felt. For the first time in his life, it was unblemished. His lightning scar was gone.

His eyes slid down and saw the rest of his pale reflection. Staring gauntly back at him was an exact replica of the weary soul in the yearbook.

Harry knew that there could be many explanations for what was going on. Death Eaters could have kidnapped him, and used the Imperius – or maybe a memory charm – on him and his uncle. But that didn't make any sense. Perhaps instead, he had been put into a nightmare – similar to the daydream patents the Weasley twins had concocted…but no, those kinds of spells were impossible to maintain for this lengthy a time period.

Perhaps he just wasn't Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Master of Death. Maybe he really was _just Harry_, a Stonewall High graduate who worked at a drilling firm_._ Maybe his entire magical life had never happened – because he knew that he wasn't just in the Muggle world. His wand wasn't just gone, and it wasn't even that his magic was gone. This was a _world_ without magic_._

Harry dimly registered that he was still holding tightly onto the Hypnosis book, as he looked away from his reflection – anything but that reflection – and instead looked, disbelievingly, down into the bowl of the sink.

Everything had been a dream, then.

Voldemort hadn't split his soul into seven pieces, hadn't killed Fred and Lupin and Tonks, hadn't driven the Longbottoms to insanity, hadn't terrorized the world, hadn't –

A furious rapping at the front door startled him, and out of habit, Harry plunged his hand into the back pocket of his pants for his wand.

"Oi! What time do you think this is? Make that kinda racket again and I'll bloody kick you out of here myself!" snarled an angry voice. It appeared to belong to the man who lived in the flat directly below his. When Harry didn't respond, the man hypocritically kicked the door several times, before stomping away.

Harry remained still, his hand still in his back pocket. His wand wasn't there, but there was something small and hard in there. He pulled it out.

It was a glistening black stone with faint markings on it. It wasn't in its original diamond shape; it had been split clean in half, and what lay in his hand was only one of the halves.

Squeezing shut his hand and feeling the point of the Resurrection Stone digging into his palm, Harry felt the feeling begin to return to his face. Finally, here was evidence that his life at Hogwarts hadn't been a dream. It had been real, and he had instead been punted into this horrifying fake world. Incidentally, this meant that Voldemort existed too, but at the moment, Harry was too elated to care. He looked back up at the mirror, and saw to his relief that a glimmer of life had returned to his dilated pupils.

His jaw went taut as his relieved expression swiftly turned grim. He would find out what had happened and who had put him there. He would find a way back to his world, back to where his friends were waiting for him.

Back home.

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**A/N: **I do have a tendency for the melodramatic, but if it gets too bad, please tell me. And once again...plot holes! Point them out for me as you read the coming chapters please.

Thank you for reading.


	3. Hope

**The Longest Road to Nowhere**

Chapter 3: Hope

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**A/N:** Thank you very much for the reviews submitted. I reply to all reviews of course, but again, to the guest reviews: thank you. Your kind reviews all encourage me to keep writing.

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_Three months later…_

Vernon Dursley, director of Grunnings firm, was having a very good day. He had yelled at seven different people, made several important telephone calls, and then shouted a bit more – and all this before lunchtime. Finding himself in an excellent mood, he had thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery. But just as he was about to heave his large frame up from the chair, his new secretary – what was her name again? – opened the door with a pale look on her face. She cleared her throat, and approaching his desk, set down a cup of tea.

"Well? What is it?" he barked.

"Director," she said hesitantly, "you've got a call from the hospital."

"The hospital?" repeated Mr. Dursley dumbly, his heart beginning to pound a little faster.

"Yes, sir. A family member appears to be in the emergency room, and they had your name on his emergency contact file – "

"What?" he roared, bursting up from his seat. "What's happened to Dudley? Which hospital is it? Don't stare at me like that, girl, out with it!"

"It isn't your son, sir," said the young secretary, stepping back from his purpling complexion and swelling figure. "It's your nephew – Mr. Potter."

For a second, Mr. Dursley's face turned blank, as he processed this information. Then, visibly deflating back to normal, he – with some difficulty – squeezed himself back into the chair. He picked up the china cup and sipped at it with an air of extreme leisure, smacking his lips in approval of the chamomile flavor. The tips of his moustache quivered.

"Sir…?" said the secretary after a few seconds. Mr. Dursley ostentatiously lowered the tea back onto the table, handling the cup as if it were his first-born child.

"That boy try to off himself again, did he?" said Mr. Dursley loudly. "Didn't succeed this time either, I'll bet. Don't pay any mind to it, the boy's always been an attention-seeker. He must've inherited it from his drunk of a father, because it certainly hasn't come from _my_ wife's side of the family."

"They almost lost him in the ER, sir," she said quietly, shaking her head. "Don't you think that you should – "

"Pish posh, he'll be fine!" spat Mr. Dursley, with a dismissive wave of his thick trunk-like hand. "The boy's like a roach; no matter how hard you stomp on it, it won't stop moving. Now, I'll be taking my lunch break, err .. Grainer, was it? Well, anyways, clear out…" But he trailed off, as if struck by a sudden thought, and a vein began to noticeably throb in his forehead.

"Sir?" ventured the secretary, wondering why she bothered wearing a name tag. There was a short pause.

"Go and fill out the hospital paperwork for me though," he finally let out grudgingly, "else that ungrateful little wretch will cause even more trouble."

**{ the longest road to nowhere }**

"Excuse me," said Hermione, finally stepping forward in line to take her turn. "I'm looking for a patient…"

"Name and relation?" said the receptionist briskly without looking away from her computer monitor; .

"I'm Hermione Granger, here for a Mr. Harry James Potter, on behalf of Dire – Vernon Dursley. I received a phone call that Mr. Potter's doctor needed a representative to be present regarding a certain issue..."

"Potter?" said the receptionist, clicking the mouse rapidly with her right hand as she pulled out a clipboard with her left. "Ah, yes. Mr. Potter was stabilized and moved to room 716 in the Psychiatric ward this afternoon. He was judged to not be of any immediate danger to himself, so currently, he is unattended, but there is a panic button by the bed in case of an emergency. Now, if you could fill out these forms and show me your identification, Dr. Patil will be with you shortly..."

After the tedious but necessary process of filling out the forms and receiving a visitor's pass, Hermione met with the harried and preoccupied doctor, who informed her in matter-of-fact tones that Mr. Potter required psychiatric attention. After arranging an appointment for Mr. Potter with a psychiatrist for the following week, she finally took the elevator up to the ward with more than a little trepidation at the coming visit.

_Harry Potter…_

She remembered him – they had been classmates their first year at Stonewall. At the beginning of the year, he had seemed like a normal boy. Although a little withdrawn and quiet at first, with a little prodding from their fellow classmates, he had seemed to be emerging from his shell. He had been bright as well; Hermione remembered, with a faint smile, the moment of shock she had experienced early in the term when she had found out that she hadn't been the one to receive the top marks on their last test.

But a few months into the first term, he had suddenly become even more withdrawn and quiet than he had started out as, and all of his new friends gradually left him. His grades had followed suit, plummeting with a speed that both perplexed and worried his professors, and she conjectured that this had continued for all their years of secondary school. Although curious at the time about what had happened to her brief rival, Hermione had soon forgot about him as she quickly transferred into a different school for the intellectually gifted.

She had surprised everyone by deciding not to go immediately on to a university after taking her A-levels; indeed, although she hadn't told anyone, she had been accepted by Oxford University. But instead, Hermione had elected to work an internship as a secretary for a medium-sized firm. She had wanted to gain some real-life experience interacting with people, not books, for a change. Of course, as soon as she had actually met the man – Dursley – she knew she had made a mistake. He was a fat walrus of a man who had about as much experience to offer her as a petty thief, and fewer morals. But she was bound to work at this company for the rest of the year, and she wasn't going to back out of any challenge.

Hermione could recall the faint feeling of pity and revulsion she'd felt the first time she'd encountered Harry Potter at the firm. He had grown up to be an ill-looking and pale young man, all joints and points, with his skinny legs crammed awkwardly behind his desk in his tiny cubicle. He hadn't looked like he had much energy or vigor to even stand up, let alone do what they'd said he had tried to do over the phone call from the hospital...

Lost as she was in her thoughts, Hermione almost passed by her destination: a wooden door with the numbers _716_ in peeling black paint. With a jerk and a harsh click of her heels, she stopped.

For a second, she didn't move, gazing at the innocent shadow of her hand wavering over the white wall. Then, she knocked.

**{ the longest road to nowhere }**

When Harry came to, the first thing he heard was the mumbling of the weather newscast on the television in his solitary room, and he could have wept with frustration. His hand automatically crept into the pocket of his hospital gown; upon feeling the smooth edges of the stone he knew he would find, he flinched.

Ignoring the steady dull pain in his temples, Harry flung away the covers – which now smelled of the all-too-familiar disinfectant of the hospital – and jerked down on the cord by the window so that the plastic blinds shot upwards. The strong sunlight stung his eyes, but he grit his teeth and simply narrowed his eyes. As the spots in his vision quickly cleared up, he was able to make out cars that sped by on the street below, and beyond that, a dark stone statue of a watching angel.

He was in the Royal London Hospital again – this would make it the third time since he'd woken up in this world. He had been _so sure_ he wouldn't make it this time. His hands had been shaking, but he had pulled the trigger, he _knew_ he had.

Pulling out the half of the resurrection stone from his pocket, he let a small bitter smile grace his lips. With this in his possession, it looked like he could blow a hole in his head and all he would come out from it would be a slight migraine. And he couldn't simply fling it away either; at first, he had been hesitant to part with it, because it was his only connection to the world he had left behind. But gradually, as he had started to get more desperate about simply getting out of this hellhole, he had come to try and get rid of it. But no matter what he did – whether he flung it into the Thames or sunk it in a boiling vat of acid – it always ended up back in his pocket, gleaming and looking as it did the night he found it in his flat.

And then, two months ago, as Harry was coming out of the library after a long day of researching alternate dimensions – with nothing to show for it but a grumbling stomach and a sinking heart – he had been hit by a speeding grocery truck.

To the astonishment of his doctors, he was released the next day from the hospital with rapidly fading bruises. A month later, after slicing his wrists in a bathtub, he'd woken up the next day in cold, crimson water without a single scratch. A few weeks ago, he'd woken up in a bed in the emergency room after having blacked out while trying to hang himself from the ceiling of his flat, and now, here he was again.

Harry knew it was morbid, but this was the first time anything remotely linked to his old world had manifested itself in this terrifying imitation world, and he had grasped on to this lifeline like a drowning man.

The half of the resurrection stone that always returned to him, and the fact that he apparently couldn't die, were connected to why his magic was gone, and why he was in the wrong world. Harry knew something huge was going on, and he was getting closer and closer to the truth. He was just missing the final piece of this jigsaw puzzle. One more clue as to why this was all happening to him, and the mystery would be solved. Surely then – _surely_ – he would be able to go back home.

Harry couldn't bear to think about any other possibility.

Lowering the blinds, he had just returned to the bed and closed his eyes when he heard a light, timid knocking on his door. He frowned – nobody had ever come to visit him before.

"Come in," he said, propping himself up on his elbows.

The door opened, and a young woman with bushy brown hair tied back in a ponytail stepped hesitantly in, her curious eyes searching the room before landing on his prone figure.

Harry's heart stopped.

"Hello Mr. Potter," she said after a second's silence. "We've met before, but I'm Director Dursley's secretary, Hermione Granger. I met with Dr. Patil on your behalf, as you were not deemed to be in a rational state of mind to represent yourself."

She had a quiet, unassuming manner about her, with undertones of confidence mixed with uncertainty. Harry, unable to speak, continued to look at her, drinking in the sight of her familiar appearance. If she felt uncomfortable under his gaze, she didn't say.

"I've scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist for you next week," said Hermione, and she must have seen him flinch in shock, because she added, "and I have been assured that he is one of the most qualified psychiatrists in his field today, so don't worry, Mr. Potter."

She gave him a stiff white card, with the doctor's name and contact information on it. Harry took it silently without looking at it, his eyes still fixed on her face.

She stood up, and began walking to the door. Harry longed to say something, but couldn't think of anything to say – anything would have been better than this silence, but what could he say? "_I guess we're not friends in this world, but in the world I come from, you're a witch and one of my best friends"?_ She'd already scheduled him for a psychiatric appointment; she'd be scheduling him for a permanent bed at the mental ward if he said anything.

But as if she had heard his longing to hear her speak more – the confident, slightly bossy and kind tone he was used to from his best friend had only a faint presence in her voice, as if rarely used, but it was still there – and as if she had been compelled to, she hesitated for a second and turned around.

"We went to school together a long time ago, Mr. Potter," said Hermione, "Do you remember?"

"Yes," said Harry to his relief, even though his voice was hoarse and strained. "Yes, I do."

Hermione seemed a little startled, but offered him a faint smile. "Then forgive me for saying this...I won't pretend to understand what circumstances led to it, but I'm very much relieved that you failed in what you tried to do. I...hope you feel better."

When he didn't reply, she left, shutting the door behind her. Harry strained his ears to hear the barely audible clicking of her heels on the marble floor, before that too faded away.

Still mute and filled with a rising sensation he couldn't give a name to – Harry collapsed back down on his bed and looked up at the ceiling. Reaching into his pocket, and turning the resurrection stone around in his hand, he found that the cold, smooth sensation offered him comfort once more. Even the weather newscast, still playing in the background – the anchorman was predicting stormy skies for the rest of the week – couldn't bring his mood down, because:

Hermione Granger was in this world.

That meant that somewhere in this world, the people he had known from his own world, were in this world as well. He should have realized this sooner, as the Dursleys were ever so present in this life, but he hadn't dared to hope that people he _loved_ were here as well.

Harry decided that he would visit Hermione again as soon as he was released. This Hermione was different from the Hermione he knew, but surely, deep down in the core, they would be the same person? And even if he couldn't tell her that he wasn't from this world, that he was in the wrong dimension – _surely_ she could do something, _anything_, to help him.

He felt as if he had been relieved from a heavy weight he hadn't even realized he had been under. He hadn't allowed himself to recognize what that sharp, constant pain in his chest had been, and now that some of it was gone, Harry's body and mind felt positively light.

After a long time – his face muscles hurt from smiling so much after such a long period of disuse – he fell asleep to bittersweet dreams of happier times by the Great Lake: a faint flowery scent, laughter, flashing red hair.


End file.
